Time flies by. Three months have past since it was 2008… There is a big difference from living in Sweden and living here. I feel more free to do what I want here. I am not the type who wants to settle down, raise a family, see the kids grow up. It was never something I desired and honestly, really honestly I will be extremely surprised if I ever changed my mind. I have a plan about that for you who insist on telling me “oh you will change your mind Pauline”: there are PLENTY of kids in the world who were never desired, cared for or loved. It’s a shame not to take care of those first instead of contributing with one’s own genes. It is not like the world needs more people. And I reason who do I think I am, how important do I think I am, that I need to plant my genes into a new generation? That is selfish, and yes, selfishness is a human trait but once again, you do not have to follow or do what your genes are programmed to do or desire.

I am turning 27 in a few months. I feel as if I am still 15 but a lot more wiser though thank god for that. I remember when I was 15, I thought 30 was old. Now, when I talk to people in their 40s or 50’s I feel I am in the same age group. It’s an amazing feeling not to care about chronological age anymore. In LA there is no such thing. You are as old as you act.

Some times I get very sweet emails about friendship. Yes, I mean friendship, not love letters ok? People who really want to get to know me personally. It is a great compliment and it got me thinking… It really IS unfair that we actually do not have any right to be a part of somebody else’s life. There is no such thing as having a right to get a chance for friendship.

I do feel bad when I respond “thank you, but no…thanks” and I try to be sensitive… it is hard, but I go through the same thing occasionally. I meet interesting people I so want to get to know, who I believe will adore me IF they just give me a chance! But life is a game and it is not fair. You cannot feel bad about not wanting to get to know someone EVEN though they seem wonderful, nice, funny, friendly, attractive. There is something called “to click” or “chemistry” and that is what one can trust and follow. Once again, I am talking about friendship and not love. Some people will comment on it so I thought I should put a reminder here too.

Today’s training was a chore. I did not feel like it. I was tired, unmotivated, in a shitty mood, itchy, feeling low. Typical monday. Session went great. lesson learned: never follow emotions. Follow reasoning or your intuition.

As little as I watch tv, a percent wise big part of it happens to be watching commercials and these get me worked up every time:

The JUICE commercials

When was the problem ever to get TOO LITTLE energy into those little kids’ bodies? How did “one serving of fruit and one of vegetables” ever become more convenient than go grab an apple! Do you HAVE to have kids suck on a straw from liquid fruit? Too hard to chew for them? well, hey, those teeth need exercise!

Everybody “knows” liquid calories are one sure way to get fat. All sodas, juice. Oh I just HATE juice in general! Tell me about a new health juice and my eyes get black. Just get it ok, juice is liquid sugar going to your fat cells and you were never ever supposed to drink vegetables. They do come in a chewy package since they are beneficial that way you know! Don’t change a winning concept, just eat it! Speaking of vegetables, I wonder when they will be the biggest part of the food pyramid in the US. It’s about time. Let’s the skinny starving ones in Africa have the potatoes from idaho instead of making them into french fries or chips.

Ok, over to the pepperidge strudel. The kid looks pissed in the commercial since he does not have a toaster for the strudel! Poor thing huh! So he’s mom is now so happy, now her kid can ENJOY the cookie at last and what a glory because a kid not eating a cookie?! Oh we cannot have that! irony for you who don’t know me yet. Hey, if a kid wants that cookie he should eat it be it dry, old, rusty, whatever, it is still a cookie. Come on kids eat weird things all the time. I would never beg a kid to eat a cookie. It is just GREAT if it does not appeal to him or her! I hate pepperidge farm now too! Don’t create needs for toasters for your strudels haha!

well, well, a lot on my mind this morning!:-)

Here is one of my favorite products btw which I cannot drink. Beta X are tabs you swallow.

People who eat lots of fast simple carbs sleep a lot and fall asleep with ease. So did I yesterday. I had my last meal at 7 pm and went to bed, slept for 12 hours! Carbs are such a wonderful sleeping pill.

I just got back from another great workout. Bike, ellipt, some jumping around. (I won´t go further in on this topic because it is all outlined in my cardio ebook and I won´t repeat the programs here so don´t even ask!;-).

I know many of you who follow the fd diet are scared of the refeeds. I am too some times, but it does do you good. The magic trick on how to be able to get leaner/stay lean and have refeed days is to practice refeeds. It takes a lot of discipline since once you start eating it is very easy to lose your willpower and you end up eating something fatty which is not that great when your insulin levels are skyrocketing from the carbs.

What you want to do is find your breaking point on how much food you can have on a refeed day without paying for it with fat gain. How will you be able to tell? well, for me, I can FEEL it on my body. If I wake up full and not smooth I am good. Since I detest feeling smooth I am very strict with my refeeds. I keep a track on all that comes in so I can evaluate the verdict. I make comments on what I enjoyed and what I did not like.

I also practice preventive eating before I even touch ANY foods I would be able to overeat from. I start with my veggie feast with miracle noodles and yesterday chicken breast. After that I wait for 3 hours and then I have my OATS with vanilla protein powder and cinnamon. This meal is about 4 cups of oats. Yeah, I love those oats. Oatmeal is so filling there is no chance you wanna overeat later. And that is why I on purpose eat a load of it: the oats swell in my stomach so I am not at all hungry for my refeed treats later on.;-)

So, at 5.30 pm yesterday I was going for dinner. I was not feeling like eating anything. I was so full. I ended up with 1 bag haribo peaches and 1 froyo from ben n jerrys. I could definately tell it was frozen yoghurt and not ice cream hahaha, MAN, I don´t know how I can be that picky and a gourmet when I never eat those thing anyway! I also tried to eat a protein bar but I threw it away, it did not taste good.

All in all, my calorie intake for the day was 3733 calories. Next time I will increase it to 4000 and see if I can get away with that too!

Yes, I will update later with pics of course….

I still have a cough, but no way I could stay home and out of the gym when I just ate hundreds of carbs.

OK, here are two pictures where I am in the same condition. day 1 119 lbs. day 2 117 lbs.

So, here I go, I cannot go by weight at all and from now on I am never a 112 lbs woman again. I don´t know how my body managed to go from last summer of 112 to 114 to more 117 to 119 nowadays.

Today is refeed day. Gotta have one before shoot april 11.

So far I had all my oats with vanilla stevia cinnamon and milk. I am very full. And a sore throat too btw. So no more training today. These carbs make me sleepy so I will go have a nap now. Hm..wonder what I will have tonight for dinner…

this is from yesterday at 119 lbs.

same condition. 117 lbs today.

Lesson #2: doubling cardio sessions did not change my weight at all so I can stop doing that. haha. I guess I will learn to be a 119 instead and just be happy with being a bit more solid this year.

Moderation is a wonderful practice, but it is nothing I am really interested in or good at either.  I love eating the same items day in and day out, but since one of them is pink salmon I am trying to change this a little. It does not matter to me I may choose the wild caught alaskan version, it is still a fish and it seems like more or less every fish has either PCBs or mercury or both. That is the reason why I stay away from the obvious sources. However, now, as much pink salmon as I eat, I am trying to change for another staple protein. My choices are either organic chicken (I am no fan of eating feathery stuff anymore) or egg whites. Egg whites seems to be better for the environment than chicken, but what do I know. Maybe I will just stick to powder instead. All about convenience…

…where you link to my blog, go ahead and use this little banner! Thanks a lot!

Finally! My cardio story ebook is done and ready to hit your mail boxes!

Just drop me an email and I will invoice you 9.99 USD and send it to you!

In picture below: client doing cardio the GOOD PRODUCTIVE WAY. What a sight! Notice the head phones to reduce approaches from the cardio bunnies who wanna chat to let the time go by fast… And check the determined look! Eyes on the prize! YOU GO!!!

There is one reason why athletes achieve so much in their field. They have their coaches and support team who push them further beyond limits the athlete sets up for him or herself. Of course, there is always the risk of demanding too much, but one thing I am pretty certain of: what you perceive as doing all you can is usually not all you can do at all. If you believe you are doing everything in your power to achieve a goal and that goal is perhaps lofty but no way impossible to achieve, then the odds are you are not even scratching the surface. Convenience and the reasoning of having the right to be reasonable should be avoided. To assume you do everything in your power or to refuse acknowledge there must be more strategies you can use to get an advantage is one sure way to fail. Because, when it comes down to it…if you have yet to succeed, how come you don´t if you now know everything and even of vaster importance, you apply it too?

It is so easy to blame bad genetics, impossible work situations, no money, no time, nothing or everything, unless you have real real REAL reasons why you cannot do exactly what you want to obtain a goal, all that is just excuses for not trying hard enough.

Just because your metabolism is not a fast one does not mean you cannot get leaner. Just because you´ve been training for ten years does not mean you know how to train to build an impressive physique. Just because you were doing track and field in high school you did not become a track and field superstar. Just because you have a bad shoulder does not mean you cannot work out.

Just because I seem to have good genetics for athletics does not and did not make me into a super athlete. And if let´s say I had all the support and the team to back me up the chances would still be slim for me to reach the creme de la creme in a competitive sport. However, I did see my strengths, a strong mind and a strong body, so I worked on pushing those qualities instead. So I got what I got.

All I want to say with this ramble is: stop trying to set your own personal limit on how much you can achieve. Most likely you will never know, you should just strive to push beyond it time after time and whatever you end up with will be way better than you imagined in the beginning.

another day in itch paradise. How come the itch monster arrives at night? I did not want to go to bed because I knew it was going to itch again. And no it is not bed bugs. But I did manage to get a mosquito bite and it drove me nuts… I had a fever at night. And woke up with a fever. I managed to use my willpower to get it down and after an hour or so I had an incredible urge to go work out. Yeah not that smart but sometimes it is better to feel good than to be healthy and miserable. I never said I am “normal” and wise. Ha!

It was back training today. I felt strong. Something with being in a kind of fog made me feel very connected to the weight. I picked up the 60s for dumbbell row and when Johnny cash sang to me with his rusty cage in my wonderful dr dre’s…well… I just repped to 20. I did not plan for that, great, I think I could’ve kept on going to a hundred, I was in the mood! Felt like a machine! One set with those and since I am a practitioner of cutting to the chase and not do x amount of reps or sets just because it is “supposed to”, rather if I do better than ever on one set I just move on to something else. If I outperfom I move on. Sometimes when I feel tired and beat I tell myself “this set is all I am gonna do, so I better make it count”. This goes hand in hand with the reason I don’t say “do x amount of sets for x amount of reps”. What happens if I change my mind? And why would I do 10 sets instead of 20 or 40? I go by intuition. Sometimes when I train other people I do have to follow something more conventional since what I do i based on intuition and feel instead of rules and recommendations. I understand I can be quite confusing. But for me, training is doing art! I don’t have set plans, I don’t normally do what I plan on doing, I go in, I listen to my muscles, give them a hard time and stay out of trouble!

New pic from better bodies…

What a saturday. Started with cardio, clients, back for chest and triceps. Home, work on computer, power nap, then squat session. Yeah I was in the mood for working out today. After second session I doubted I would wanted to go back for another round with the weights, but since I knew this thought would most likely come across my mind, I prevented that from happening by storing my bag with the iphone in it at the gym. That way I had to go back! haha, I remember I used to plant my wallet at work back in Sweden so I couldn’t go buy ice cream at night! If you fail to plan…You plan to fail.

I found some very interesting trigger points in my legs too. worked on them and my tight glute on the right opened up. So I will do that more often, seems like I need it.

I got a funny email today. A lady wanted to know some things about me. SO, here are some facts about me, food and training…:-)

I stopped training biceps on a consistent basis back in May 2006. Reason was they made my shoulders look less broad.

I’ve never done a leg workout without squats.

Last time I had a pizza was November 5th 2007. Before that I had one in June 2005. And before that one in december 2004. The last one was a Dominos.

I’ve had two hamburgers in my life: one McDonald version and one Carls Junior.

When I was 17 I thought I powerwalked well by walking as slow as possible so it would take me a long time to go to the turning point.

I used to eat a lot more protein a couple of years ago. I thought it would be good for me. When I cut it down I did not lose muscle.

I started eating according to my Fighter Diet concept back in May 2005. At that point my body really started to change for the better and become a lot leaner and defined.